Conventionally, as a thermotherapy, there has been known a method in which a patient warms his body by bathing in a hot spring or by taking a sauna. In such methods, blood vessels are relaxed and are widened so that the circulation of blood is enhanced. As a result, the method brings about versatile advantageous effects to the liver, kidney or heart of the patient.
However, the method warms the human body from a body surface and hence, the efficiency of warming a deep part of the human body is poor. Further, the method requires a large amount of calorific value so that a size of a warming facility becomes large thus giving rise to a drawback that it is difficult for a patient or a person who wants to use the method to easily make use of the method.
Particularly, even in a method which warms a body surface using a sauna, a portion of a thermal gas is inhaled in the respiratory organ. Accordingly, it may be considered that the principle of warming the human body from the inside has been put into practice by such a method. However, in such a method, the warming of the human body from the inside is absolutely supplementarily performed. That is, the human body is warmed mainly from the outside. In warming the human body from the body surface, the largest problem is that perspiration from a skin surface is heavy so that a heat dissipation phenomenon takes place along with the perspiration whereby the elevation of the body temperature is suppressed. Further, the concentration of the blood is increased due to the perspiration. Although some thermal gas enter alveoli of lungs through the respiratory organ, due to the increase of the concentration of the blood, the heat transfer generated by a gas exchange between the thermal gas and the blood is lowered in the alveoli of the lungs. This may be taken for granted since a sauna aims at the acceleration of the perspiration. That is, the object of using the sauna contradicts an object of the present invention that a temperature of a deep part of the human body is elevated by warming the inside of the human body. Further, in taking a sauna, the human body is warmed from the body surface and hence, the evaporation of the moisture from a skin surface is promoted so that the skin becomes dry whereby a sauna is not a therapy appropriate for patients suffering from skin diseases.
As a specific thermotherapy, for example, there has been known a technique disclosed in JP-A-2006-263425, wherein vapor containing a radon gas is evaporated by heating water in which radon ores are immersed, and a lying person inhales the evaporated vapor into his respiratory organ. This technique, however, merely aims at the elevation of a body temperature by allowing the lying person to inhale such hot vapor partially so that this technique merely has a function of elevating the body temperature in the same manner as an ordinary mist sauna. Accordingly, to elevate a temperature of a deep part of the human body by 1° C., it is necessary to humidify the human body with vapor having a temperature of 66° C. or more for 15 to 20 minutes. Although a healthy person may withstand such a thermotherapy, the application of the thermotherapy to a patient imposes a heavy physical burden on the patient. Accordingly, such thermotherapy is not applicable to the patient.
Also in this technique, in the same manner as a sauna therapy, a person may partially inhale vapor containing a radon gas into his respiratory organ. However, such a technique also mainly aims at warming a body surface. That is, a main purpose of such a technique is to promote the perspiration from the body surface so that a heat dissipation phenomenon takes place along with the perspiration whereby the elevation of the body temperature is also suppressed in this technique. That is, the object of this technique contradicts the object of the present invention that a temperature of a deep part of a human body is elevated by warming the human body from the inside.
Further, besides the above-mentioned technique, as disclosed in 2003/0136402A1, there has been known a technique in which a symptomatic therapy for the contusion of a head or the like is performed by cooling a body of a patient by allowing the patient to inhale mist through an oral cavity of the patient, wherein the mist is generated by evaporating water by making use of ultrasonic waves. Such a therapy, however, is a cooling therapy which is a therapy completely opposite to the thermotherapy. Accordingly, even when an attempt may be made to warm the cooling mist by applying a principle of the sauna to the mist, so long as the cooling therapy aims at cooling organs of a human body ranging from an oral cavity to bronchial tubes using the cooling mist, the cooling therapy cannot achieve a physiological phenomenon intrinsic to the thermotherapy, that is, the utilization of hot vapor which reaches to the alveoli of the lungs and hence, it is impossible to directly apply this cooling mist technique to the warming of the human body.
US 2003/0136402A1 also discloses a technique in which a patient inhales cooling mist and, thereafter, inhales hot mist through his oral cavity thus warming his body. However, a warming medium is mist, that is, an atomized liquid and hence, the hot mist which is inhaled through the oral cavity of the patient cannot reach alveoli of lungs. Accordingly, the hot mist cannot sufficiently brings about phenomena including the warming of blood by a gas exchange between the hot mist and blood or the heat transfer to blood in alveoli of lungs.
Further, US2008/0262377A1 discloses a technique which suggests a possibility that a patient inhales hot mist into alveoli of his lungs. However, the technique does not specifically teach a mechanism of thermotherapy through alveoli of lungs. Accordingly, in this technique, specific studies have not been made at all with respect to whether or not hot mist of a proper temperature can reach alveoli of lungs of a patient. Also specific studies have not been made at all with respect to whether or not a temperature of a deep part of a human body can be elevated by approximately 1° C. even if hot mist of a proper temperature may reach alveoli of lungs of a patient. Accordingly, there is no possibility that such a technique is actually put into practice.
That is, this technique is substantially equal to the above-mentioned technique in which the patient inhales the hot mist through his oral cavity. That is, this technique also uses mist which is an atomized liquid and hence, this technique also cannot make the hot mist reach the alveoli of the lungs. Accordingly, it is impossible to envisage a mechanism of a heat exchange between hot mist and blood in alveoli of lungs from the disclosure of US2008/0262377A1.